Local StoriesNovember 3, 2022

Conversations with Victoria Holman

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Holman.

Victoria, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started on my photography journey back in 2009. It was my freshman-year film photography class. I loved the challenge of working with the exposure changes and the artistry behind developing and editing the film and your photographs.

I transitioned from film to digital. Utilizing my parent’s digital Kodak camera and capturing the candid moments of my family and friends. I started growing in the digital field and in 2014, I started senior photo sessions under the name of VL Photography. I went to college during the school year and would capture these senior sessions during the summers.

In 2016, I added on a second shooting for weddings and grew into shooting weddings myself. This was a wonderful addition and I had so much fun working with these couples to capture one of the big moments in their lives.

I met my husband in 2017 and he became my second shooter. I realized as we went through capturing these moments for people that the VL Photography name no longer fit what we had become.

In 2020 my husband and I started The Hol Idea, as a play on our last name, Holman. Under this name, we took on senior, anniversary and portrait sessions, as well as engagement and wedding sessions. Focusing solely on photography.

It was hard to start over and even harder as the pandemic took over the world. I became very nostalgic during the pandemic. You didn’t always know what the next day held for you or your family. So I held on to photographs even more, as the memories are frozen in time. Something else came into my life during this time and that was the motion of home videos. Not only capturing moments and memories in freeze frame but in real-time.

This inspired me so much that in 2022, The Hol Idea rebranded and became an LLC. We are now The Hol Idea Productions that offer both photography and videography services under lifestyle, elopement and wedding packages.

We are hoping to continue to grow and learn from not only our personal experiences but those of our clients!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
No, it has not always been a smooth road. I started The Hol Idea with my husband at the beginning of 2020, with just a focus on photography. Due to the pandemic, we had to figure out a way to work with our clients in a safe way after the country opened back up.

Our most recent challenge is the change and recreation that we made at the beginning of 2022 into who we are now, The Hol Idea Productions. Adding on videography and having to learn a whole new skill with shooting and editing and coming out with a story about our couples and families that we capture.

We’ve grown so much within the past two years with how much we’ve learned and created. We are constantly learning and always ready for the next challenge to present itself.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The Hol Idea Productions captures Lifestyle (Senior, Family and Anniversary) Sessions with our photographers.

We also offer photography and videography for the Elopement and Wedding Sessions, both of which include engagement sessions, itinerary building and session planning included in their packages.

I am proud of being able to serve as many clients as we have to capture their stories! I have met so many wonderful people and learned from them and their stories.

I am also proud of maintaining the real life feel to people’s memories. I maintain a somewhat minimalistic editing style that enhances the authentic moments being captured. I, of course, will always do edits per request, like removing acne, dirt on tights or that pesky vehicle in the background.

A goal of mine is to maintain affordability. I don’t want a couple or a family to have to decide between their rent, bills or even the little details that would make their session into a core memory. I want to give them a low-stress, memorable session or wedding day and be able to capture their authentic selves.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Introverted, creative, and adventurous and I asked A LOT of questions. I always wanted to learn and still do.

I am an introvert and would rather have the attention on someone else. Which is kind of ironic because For the first five years of my life, I was an only child – I was the center of both of my parent’s attention.

I was a child that loved to keep learning and be creative whenever I got the chance. I built worlds, created stories and captured moments with our polaroid camera.

Once my middle and younger sister came along, I had adventure buddies. We grew up in the suburbs of Lakeville with a large yard and a little woods in the back. This is where my creativity came alive. In this wood, I created stories, took pictures, and began my filming journey.

I was a part of theater in high school, both as an actor and a technician. You will find me still running around my home singing to a plethora of musicals to this day. It has my husband laughing at me every so often as I can get a bit expressive with my actions and my face.

I am an adventurer. Duluth and the north shore have always been a second home for me and a source for inspiration either in my photography or in my creative writing. I have gotten the opportunity over my life to travel to 13 states within the USA and I am hoping to get to all 50 within my lifetime.

In college, I took the opportunity to live abroad in Scotland and finish up my general studies there. I travelled all over Scotland and England and discovered so much history and came back to my love for capturing moments in time. Being able to recall memories from the images I took. I came home from that trip having learned so much about myself as a person and as a photographer.

I’ve come to find in my years of life, that if I am not doing something to keep my creative juices flowing, then I am bored and I feel stuck. Photography is an ever-evolving art that I love to keep learning in and being given the opportunity to discover a new sense of self through.

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